the asian pacific american issues newsmagazine at uc berkeley

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On Wednesday, 11/16, hardboiled, the only APA newsmagazine in all of Berkeley, will be hosting a panel that features various organizations outside of the Berkeley campus that cater to the APA community.

The groups represented include Hyphen Magazine, Kollaboration SF, RAMA, APAPA CCC, and the Asian Law Caucus.

They will be describing their respective groups and discussing ways in which Berkeley students could contribute to the APA community off-campus. It will be insightful, it will be enlightening, and it will definitely be dope.

It will be located in Wheeler 123, and will take place from 6:30 – 8:00 PM. Hope to see you all there! =]

hardboiled is currently accepting applications for intern positions for the spring 2012 semester. The hb intern app spring 2012 is due on Wednesday, November 16 at midnight, 11:59:59 pm. We will be holding interviews the following week, from November 21-22 right before Thanksgiving.

If you’re interested, come talk to a current editor/intern at our next general meeting. Our meetings are on Wednesdays, 6:30-8pm in 75 Evans. If you have any questions, feel free to email us or stalk current core members on facebook.

hardboiled is collaborating with PASS and REACH! to put together REALtalk! Come join us for a REALtalk about SB 185 and the reactions that came from it. We will also be discussing other issues that are related. If you want to learn more or discuss more about this topic, don’t hesitate to stop by!

Check out this event! Wednesday, November 9 at 8-10pm in the MCC, UC Berkeley

Presentation by Eddy Zheng, a formerly incarcerated Chinese immigrant who served 19 years in prison, is now a community activist in SF whose story made the news with his impending deportation.

Meet the filmmakers and see a sneak peek of a documentary that highlights a critical human rights issue facing the U.S. today: the alarming increase of Asian immigrants and refugees being incarcerated and deported.

On Tuesday, July 12, six other undocumented students and I conducted an act of civil disobedience to empower young undocumented immigrant youth and to protest the inhuman treatments of immigrants. We sat in the street nearby San Bernardino Valley College and submitted to arrest. We were taken to jail, and we are now being threatened with deportation. This is the first time in California, where undocumented youth participated in non-violent civil disobedience.

We chose to protest in San Bernardino County because organizations like the National Socialist Party (Nazis), the Minutemen, and anti-immigrant legislators have been terrorizing the immigrant communities. In San Bernardino, a 17-year old student was arrested and deported simply because he was riding his bike without the headlights on. Another student was arrested and deported because he was playing basketball on campus late at night. Where is the justice? Why are so many talented immigrant youth being targeted?

After our arrest, we were held in jail for almost 12 hours. All seven of us were confined to a single cell room with one toilet, one roll of toilet paper, and two long wooden benches. It was very cold.

One of the youngest participants, 19-year-old student Jorge Herrera, led the unity clap inside the cell. With our eyes closed, everyone followed by the rhythm of the clap. I shouted, ‘Isang Bagsak!’ a Filipino unity cry, “one down, one fall!” – meaning we must stand together and fight for justice. Even in jail, the room was filled with energy and strong determination.

Several hours later, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer came to our cell to interrogate us. The ICE agent looked directly at me and said, “I will not detain you today, but I will detain you soon.” In reality, the ICE agent has the authority to deport us, to separate us from our family and friends, and to send us to a country that is foreign to us.

ICE was notified because of the “secure communities” program that allows local law enforcement to share information with ICE to initiate deportation proceedings. This is an unjust program, because it leaves immigrant communities vulnerable and distrustful of the police.

A year ago, my family’s home was burglarized. The door was broken into pieces, the windows were completely shattered, and our valuable belongings were gone. All of my family was terrified. My immediate reaction was to call the police, but my mother stopped me, “Ju, do not call the police,” she said. “What if you get deported?”

Like many other undocumented immigrants, I was living in the shadows and living in a constant fear of deportation. However, I have decided to stand up and fight back. I am sick and tired of remaining silent. Today, I am proclaiming to the world that I am undocumented and unafraid.

In the next couple of weeks, I will find out if ICE will start removal proceedings on our cases. If ICE decides to put me in deportation proceedings, I will take full action and I will fight until I regain my basic human rights.

I risked my life because I wanted to empower other young undocumented youth. In particular, I strongly encourage my fellow Asian American undocumented youth to take the next step and come out of the shadows. Start sharing your personal story to your friends, your relatives, your counselors, and your communities. This is only way we can empower our communities and fix our broken immigration system.

I risked my life because I wanted to show that this is not only a Latino issue; in fact, this is a human rights issue. I hope we can stand united as a movement, and not let divisions hurt our work.

We are calling on President Barack Obama to stop the deportation of all undocumented students throughout the country. Please join us.

This is our home, this is our country, and we want to contribute to make this nation a better place.

On November 8, UC Berkeley’s Chicano/Latino Studies program hosted a screening of the PBS documentary, The Longoria Affair. The director and producer of the film, John J. Valadez was present at the screening.

The Longoria Affair tells the story of a Mexican American Felix Longoria, who died fighting in WWII. His body was exhumed from the Philippines and brought back to his home, Three Rivers, Texas. Tom Kennedy, the owner of the town’s only funeral house, however, informed Mrs. Longoria that her family could not use the house because the “whites wouldn’t like it.” His refusal sparked a community movement, headed by Dr. Hector Garcia, the town’s only Mexican American physician. Eventually, the Longoria Affair turned into a national incident, grabbing the attention of Senator Lyndon B. Johnson. In many ways, the Longoria Affair was the catalyst for a larger, national Mexican-American civil rights movement.

The Longoria Affair is part of a PBS series called Independent Lens, which features independent films created by minority film makers. After the screening, Director Valadez spoke about the marginalization of minority film makers and their stories in mainstream media. He urged the audience to visit the PBS website and leave a comment about the value of films created by minorities and about minorities. His comments made me think about the privilege that we have as UC Berkeley students, specifically in the Ethnic Studies space. We live in a bubble where we acknowledge the value of our histories, cultures, and stories. We have access to events such as film screenings about our stories. It’s easy to forget, though, that outside of the Ethnic Studies space, there are institutions that don’t value our stories. It’s a struggle for film makers such as John Valadez to create the films that they envision and to have them actually distributed to an audience.

So, what can you do about the marginalization of minority film makers and our stories in the mainstream media? First, you can support film makers like Valadez by watching their films on PBS or their website. After that, make sure you leave a comment on the PBS website: http://www.itvs.org/films/longoria-affair/comments. Just letting PBS know that someone out there values the works of these independent film makers makes a difference. If PBS knows that there is an audience for these independent films produced by minority film makers, they will continue to air them and perhaps invest more money in these projects.

First you pass a blatantly racist law that is reminiscent of Nazi Germany and now you pass a law banning Ethnic Studies in schools.

Honestly, I don’t even know where to begin. I feel like I shouldn’t even need to say this. I shouldn’t have to write this blog. I shouldn’t have to defend the value of Ethnic Studies in Arizona, this nation, this world.

I don’t understand how someone can deny the right of an individual to learn about his or her own history. I don’t understand how Arizona legislators can justify the censorship of people’s stories and experiences.

As a student of color, my history is excluded from the high school textbooks. My people’s contributions to this country are not acknowledged. If they are, their stories are merely footnotes in the hundreds of pages glorifying America.

Ethnic studies provides a space for students to learn about the marginalization of different groups within this country. It provides students with the opportunity to not only learn about their own history, but the history of their classmates as well. Ethnic Studies is about bridging cultural differences and creating understanding between different groups of people. It is about SOLIDARITY, not the resentment that Arizona Governor Brewer says that it promotes.

“Governor Brewer signed the bill because she believes, and the legislation states, that public school students should be taught to treat and value each other as individuals and not be taught to resent or hate other races or classes of people,” spokesman Paul Senseman said on behalf of Gov. Brewer.(1)

What does high school U.S. history teach us, Governor Brewer?

When I took high school U.S. history, I definitely did not study about the contributions that Chinese immigrants made to this country. I did not learn about their contributions to the Transcontinental Railroad and to the building of the western frontier.

I would argue that high school U.S. history teaches students to resent other races or classes of people. Why? Because U.S. history teaches students that it is okay to marginalize different groups of people. It teaches them that it is okay to exclude people’s stories and experiences from the history books. It teaches them to devalue their own history and that of others.

Ethnic Studies was created out of a problem of marginalization and exclusion. It was created in response to the exclusion of people’s stories and experiences from the history books. If anything, Ethnic Studies builds solidarity while high school U.S. history promotes exclusion and marginalization.

This past year alone has proven the need for Ethnic Studies. The Compton Cookout at UCSD, the unrelated incidents of swastikas spray painted at both UC Davis and UC Berkeley…these incidents are reminders of why we need a space for dialogue and solidarity-building. We, as a BROKEN community and nation, NEED Ethnic Studies more than ever.

The year is 2010. Let’s not revert back to the racist regimes of Nazi Germany, Jim Crow, and the Apartheid in South Africa. Arizona may have taken a step back, but what about you? What will YOU do to reclaim YOUR world and make it the best it can be?

Distributing publications is a tough business, especially on Sproul. How do you jog stressed, sleep deprived college students out of their daily routine for five seconds in order to get them to take a copy of hardboiled? That was the question that I was battling with today on Sproul as I attempted to distribute issue 13.2. From my limited experience with distribution, usually students will take a copy (begrudgingly) and walk away as I thank them. Today, however, a student paused and said something that made me reflect on the title of our beloved publication.
hardboiled. The name could have multiple meanings. Are we named after a hardboiled egg? White on the outside, yellow on the inside? This student in particular interpreted hardboiled as implying that Asian Americans are whitewashed.
Now, I can totally see where this student is coming from. After all, it seems very plausible that we’re named after a hardboiled egg. There are only so many items in the world that can be hardboiled…eggs, eggs, and oh, eggs.
BUT (emphasis on the ‘but’), we’re not named after an egg! We’re actually named after a Hong Kong 1992 film called–yes, you guessed it–Hard Boiled (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104684/). The movie surrounds two cops who are basically just kickass. There’s a scene in the movie where one of the cops takes down several bad guys while holding a baby in his arms (and the baby doesn’t make a single peep!).
I’m not one of the founders of hardboiled, but I’m guessing that they just wanted to capture the spirit of that 1992 film. hardboiled was borne out of a sentiment of exclusion by the Daily Cal. hardboiled tries to be a voice for the Asian American community, whether that be through our coverage of political issues or jpop. Our title doesn’t reference an egg nor are we trying to imply that Asian Americans are whitewashed. We’re simply just trying to be like Inspector Tequila and Tony in Hard Boiled—a publication that strives to protect its community and advocate for equality in all walks of life whether that be politics, the entertainment industry, or the classroom.

The student that I encountered on Sproul today had other reservations about hardboiled (one of them being that we’re biased, but we wholeheartedly admit that because what publication isn’t?), so I suppose I can understand why he didn’t take a copy of hardboiled. But for the people out there who think we’re named after an egg…we’re not! And we definitely are not implying that Asian Americans are whitewashed.
So…please take a copy of hardboiled next time I’m on Sproul, okay?